Sunday, September 5, 2010

2,000 Mile Update - Taking the scenic route


I struggled pushing this bike 38 or so miles, much of which on 55 mph highways where most cars want to go over 65 mph.  After mix and matching every possible combination of routes I've settled on the shortest, most scenic route. I spend less than a few hundred yards on the two lane highway for the first 17 miles. Then I hit the 2005 housing bubble built on what was California's greatest concentration of vernal pools where i travel the speed of traffic on urban roads.  The following photos show what my alternative route looks like each day.  The slower speeds, quieter roads and motor bike allow me to listed to audio books during my long commute which makes my ride feel much more productive.  This route has allowed me to never come close to running out of energy, I always have two of 11 bars of power left.  And when I factor in the time I spend on my gas bike stopping for gas every other day, this slower route adds right about 30 minutes total per day.  With being able to better listen to audio, low maintenance, cheaper fuel and hopefully endless reliability I think I've finally found peace an relaxation taking this bike on a 38 miles commute.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Pissing Gas

Riding home after work, rush hour, road packed.  As I drive I get a horrid breath of gasoline smell, I see a road kill at the side of the road and my fried brain puts the two together and thinks "humm, there was dead animal and they tried to clean it up by scrubbing the road with gasoline, weird"...  then I get another huge wiff of gasoline, it brings another flashback of I think cleaning with kerosene when I was a kid, so once again my tired head thinks "are they trying to clean the whole road with gasoline?"  Then a mile or two later I wake up and realize it still smells like gasoline and this is not right! and I start paying attention and realize a mini van ahead two car lengths and in the lane to my left has a continuous stream of gasoline just pouring out from the back of the car.  I think how stupid I would be if I stop the car and I'm just being paranoid and its not actually gasoline so I pull up close alongside and kind of lean over and sure enough, is a full mist of gasoline hitting the road at 40 miles per hour and misting/splashing all over the road and up into the cars wind turbulence.

Of course next I pull up to the poor high school looking drummer (he had a full drum set in the back) kid's passenger window and let the kid know his car fuel pump is just gushing gas all over the place and so on.

I thought I ought to post this as that night when I got home I caught up on my emails and made it the the Tesla news letter with this forum about electric vehicle crashes being safer than car crashes (think pissing gasoline).

Crashing an Electric Car:
http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/crashing-electric-car